As Long As I'm Around
by Wallflowergirl
Summary: He couldn't remember what had happened, or why there was so much pain. All he knew was that Dean wasn't there.


_**A/N: Set mid season one, sometime after **_**Scarecrow **_**(and inspired a little by that episode). This is slightly different from what I usually write – an experiment, really! **_

_**The title is from one of my favourite season one quotes.**_

_**Disclaimer: I asked Father Christmas so nicely, but they still weren't among my presents...**_

_**SN SN SN SN SN SN SN SN SN SN SN SN**_

Cold.

The sub-zero chill struck up through the futile protection of torn clothing, burning against exposed flesh that shrank instinctively from the discomfort. Even where fabric shielded skin a slow icy wetness seeped through and rendered the scant coverings useless.

Hard, unyielding angles pressed against him. Or was he the angles? Where the surface should have given way, compromised with his body for shared space, there was only resistance. There was no curve to accommodate hipbones and elbows as there would have been on a bed; no support for his head which tilted awkwardly as no pillow should ever allow.

It made no sense. The hard... the cold... he didn't understand. Something was wrong but there was nothing, no explanation for what was happening or why. His head was a blank, a dull frightening emptiness of _cold_ and _hard_.

He wanted to move. He _needed_ to move. He had to turn over, roll onto his back, get up and figure out where he was. Or roll onto his stomach? Vertigo assailed him and he couldn't tell which was up, this way or that way, or if his head was over his feet or the other way round.

His eyes were shut. Then they were open but seeing only darkness: shiny, black, damp darkness. Maybe he shut them again. Or not. There was light then, but it was all wrong. Red. And blue. And red _and_ blue. Which should have made purple: some jangled disconnected part of him wanted to laugh at thinking about that now. The _redblueredblue_ was bad, fundamentally not right, but although he knew that he couldn't think why.

Sounds, thick and heavy, filtered slowly through. There were voices, he decided, garbled and nonsensical, dragged out like a recording played back at half the speed. And something that wasn't a voice, a sound. He knew he knew it, had heard it before. It was bad like the lights.

The voices flashed, suddenly normal speed again. There were words but the part of him which should have understood them was enveloped in the dull blankness and all he could hear was the frantic fear and concern and _hurry_.

He needed to move.

_Dean._

One clear thought. Enough. More motivation than the _cold_, or the _hard_, or the emptiness of not knowing and not understanding.

_Dean!_

He needed to move.

He rolled onto his back. Or maybe he didn't: maybe he turned his head, or lifted his arm, or turned a somersault or only blinked his eyes. They were all alike and it didn't matter: the result was the same, in the end.

Lights and voices and cold-wet-hard blurred and merged and got lost.

And the pain roared, surging like ocean vastness, tossing him helplessly. Agony like a thousand tiny points, phosphorescent pin pricks, uniting. Becoming blinding. Overwhelming and unbearable and too much, everywhere, through him and around him and in him.

He thought he screamed as the merciful darkness swooped down. But maybe it was only an unheard whisper.

_Dean..._

* * *

It was quiet.

It was quiet as it had been the night before, and the night before that.

Dr. Price, middle-aged veteran of big city hospital emergency rooms, had to admit to himself that he was bored. Peace had been what he'd craved when he'd left those hospitals to come to a place where the breech presentation of Mrs. Andersen's fifth pregnancy was a major excitement. But the never-ending stream of nothing became a little tedious.

In no possible sense did he wish anyone harm, but it was almost a relief when the ambulance wailed outside, when the doors crashed open and the paramedics came running in with the gurney.

The young man was a mess. Multiple fractures, according to Steve, the paramedic with the flamboyant moustache; blood loss, possible internal injuries. His vitals were not encouraging.

It was skinny Roy who supplied the information that the boy was unidentified. No-one at the scene had claimed him, or been able even to provide his name. He carried no wallet; a search of the shredded and bloody clothing yielded only a cellphone, smashed beyond any hope of repair.

It was almost unheard-of in the tiny town of Robertson to find someone that no-one knew.

* * *

White this time. Impossibly bright, glaring down and searing. He thought his eyes were shut, but it seemed to make no difference. It hadn't been white before... or had it? He couldn't remember.

He couldn't remember anything.

Except the pain.

He didn't need to remember that: it hadn't left him. Deep, relentless agony racked limbs and chest and head, pain that would have torn screams from him if he'd had breath enough. If the air wasn't being crushed from his lungs by some unseen force.

There were the voices again, loud and hurried, and he thought they might be talking to him but he couldn't listen, couldn't think of anything but air, air which he needed and wasn't getting. Then something was over his face, over his desperate open mouth, tasting funny and plastic. It helped, a little.

A hand was on his arm. It wasn't the hand he wanted, calloused and comforting. He fought through the blur of sounds and incomplete words for the voice he needed to hear, deep and brusque and infinitely soothing, but it wasn't there.

_Dean..._

"...sir... hear... name... fam... some... call..." Kind, urgent but gentle. Making no sense. For a moment he managed to lift leaden eyelids. Blue eyes above him... red hair... Not green eyes, not the longed-for dark blond spikes.

"De..." A breathless moan, desperate and terrified. Panic was setting in, deep and intrinsic like the pain, at the absence of that hand and voice, those eyes and defiant hair that should have been there.

Fingers stretched out, grasping limply at empty air where a firm grip should have met them.

"_De..._"

And then a thought, drifting and half-forgotten. Incomprehensible. Fearsome.

"_... don't expect me to come after you..."_

* * *

White-knuckled fingers curled, taking on the markings of perforated leather. One tight forearm jerked down as the road curved under the wheels, and a booted foot pressed a little more heavily on the accelerator.

The passenger seat was empty.

The passenger seat had been empty before. It had been empty for years while its rightful occupant was at school. Dean had hated it then, but he had grown accustomed to it, to filling the space with his jacket and his duffle, with empty fast food containers and stray m&m's.

It was astonishing how rapidly he'd forgotten that loneliness once the seat was no longer vacant.

At the thought of Stanford his jaw clenched. It had become a symbol to him, of conflict, of tension between the two people who meant the most to him. It had taken his brother when Sam insisted on making his own way, and it had kept him when his father refused to accept Sam's choices.

He couldn't blame this on Stanford, of course. School hadn't taken Sam this time.

But the conflict was essentially the same, even if the subject was different. Sam was still stubborn, and their father was still rigidly authoritative, and the two powerful wills had clashed once again.

"_You're stubborn and selfish and only ever think of yourself..."_

And Sam had gone.

And Dean was alone again.

He'd been angry before, the last time. He'd watched his brother leave him and had known frustration and a desire to hit something, or someone. But mostly then it had been fear, for the little brother who was leaving his protection, and a desolation to which he would never admit. Because he'd heard his father's words. He knew the finality of Sam's departure.

This was no less final, but it was not fear and desolation that tightened his muscles, that drew his mouth down in a stiff line.

"_Your way is always right, isn't it!"_

This was anger as he hadn't felt it before. This was blind rage, for the one he loved most who had let him down as he had never foreseen.

"_Sam Winchester does exactly what he wants and to hell with everyone else..."_

* * *

Pain.

Always the pain.

Dulled now, drifting somewhere beyond him in the foggy grayness where he couldn't do battle with it, but still there. Heavy and aching in his chest, in his leg. A spraying burst of fireworks sometimes when any part of him moved. Sometimes he heard himself groan, and then someone would be there, hands moving around him and words that he didn't fully understand but that were kind nevertheless.

There was usually someone there. Sometimes there seemed to be several. He would lie and listen to the voices, and strain to hear the only one he wanted.

It never came.

"_... don't expect me to come after you..."_

He didn't understand it. He didn't understand why Dean didn't come.

The strange dull blankness of his mind was lit sometimes. Flashing, unrelated thoughts; words, sentences and fragments of sentences. He reached for them when they came, trying to make sense of something, trying to remember.

"_... mindless..."_

"_... just sitting around on your ass..."_

But it was always that one sentence that terrified him.

"_... don't expect me to come after you..."_

It hurt, more than his chest or his leg, more than his head, but he didn't know why. He would reach out, panicked fingers grasping for something. Reassurance. Comfort. That particular hand that meant he wasn't alone.

It never came.

* * *

"_You blindly follow the man like some dim-witted trooper..."_

All those angry words. He could have recited them, every single missile that had been hurled, as he could never have recalled that other argument. It had been his father who had caused this, as he had caused that fight years previously. But this time it had been Dean facing Sam with furious responses. His father had issued an order, impersonally, through a cellphone. Dean had accepted it. Sam had not.

"_You never even consider that Dad might be wrong!"_

"_Do you ever think that _you_ might be?"_

And this time it had been Dean's ultimatum and not his father's.

He'd flung it at his brother. He'd meant it when he said it, and he'd followed up on it when that course opened up.

He hadn't expected Sam to take the challenge.

He'd seen the flash of something in the furious green-blue eyes, something that was not anger. He'd seen the way Sam jerked, minutely, almost a flinch. Sam hadn't answered him then, had swung away and dropped onto his bed with his back to Dean. It was his way of ending the conversation, and Dean had thought it was an admission of defeat, or at least of reluctant acceptance.

But he'd been wrong.

Sam was gone.

And it wasn't even the burningly accurate memory of every phrase they'd thrown at each other that kept the rage simmering inside him.

It was the knowledge that Sam had known what he was losing. He had known that in choosing his own stubborn way, in going ahead with what he wanted in defiance of his father, he was rejecting his brother.

"_If you leave, Sam, don't expect me to come after you..."_

* * *

He was actually good-looking.

If Sister Carter ignored the bruises and scrapes, and the milky pallor, the angular features were attractive. It wasn't too difficult to imagine the slack unconscious face animated; that stubborn chin suggested a determined character.

The dark hair drooped untidily, almost falling over his eyes. They'd had to cut some of it away to treat the head injury. It was shaggy and over-long. Maybe he wasn't able to get it trimmed very often: maybe he was a drifter. A vagrant.

But he'd been clean-shaven when he was brought in.

Maybe he wore it like that on purpose. A statement. A metaphorical middle finger to someone who expected him to toe the line. For a moment she pictured his parents sighing over their rebel child.

His parents. If he had any, were they frantic right now, desperately trying to find their son? No-one at the hospital had been able to discover anything about him, any relatives, even a name for their patient. Was he lost, or running away, and somewhere a host of anxious friends and relatives were worrying and praying and searching? Her own son was only three, but she couldn't even begin to imagine the horror of losing him, of having no idea where he was.

Maybe he had no parents. Maybe he had no-one.

The thought was disturbing.

He was so young, only twenty-one or two at the most. Helpless and vulnerable, broken leg, broken wrist, broken ribs, severe concussion... he should have had family there, a mother to hold his hand and comfort him, a father to be strong for him. He should have had someone with him to soothe him when the pain was bad.

He shouldn't have to lie there all alone.

She recorded his blood pressure and pulse, checked the IV and oxygen and the dressing over the head wound. Professional movements. Actions she'd performed often, for him and for the scores of other patients she'd nursed in the past.

Perhaps she didn't often stroke back her patients' hair. Or let her hand rest for a moment on their foreheads. Not the adults, anyway.

But she couldn't help thinking of this boy's mother. She would want someone to be there for her son, someone to comfort her child when she could not.

He stirred a little, groaned softly.

"Shhh. It's okay... just lie still." She didn't expect an answer, wasn't even sure he could hear her; it was a shock when she saw his eyes were open.

They were an unusual shade of blue-green.

She leaned forward, alert.

"Hey there..."

But they were glazed, dull and uncomprehending. They hesitated on her face before sliding past her as if searching for someone.

"De..." It was a moan, almost inaudible, but she heard the single syllable.

"Who's Dee?"

His eyelids drooped. He was almost unconscious again. If he'd even been awake at all.

"Honey –"

On the bed his uninjured arm moved. The fingers curled shut, and then fell limply open again.

"_De..._"

* * *

His phone sat on the nightstand, next to the keys. His eyes strayed to it, even as his hands went through the familiar evening routine. Clean, oil, load, sharpen... He counted each piece as it lay on the opposite bed, replaced the weapons one by one in the duffle.

He was still furious.

He looked at the phone again.

He was still a big brother.

Sam hadn't called him.

He hadn't expected Sam to call him. When Sam had been at Stanford there had been weeks when they hadn't spoken. But there had been few evenings when Dean didn't look at his phone, pick it up and toy with the idea of calling his brother.

Even though he still wanted to knock him flying, he needed to know that Sam was alright.

How many times had he slept in a motel room by himself? When Sam had been at Stanford and his father away on another hunt... he'd gone to sleep alone and woken alone, eaten take-out, done laundry and cleaned and checked the weapons alone, functioning perfectly efficiently despite the loneliness that he indignantly denied even to himself.

Now he kept expecting the bathroom door to open. Every time he looked up he was jarred by the absence of a lanky figure sprawled at the table in front of a laptop computer.

He could still remember their last conversation, every word, and he didn't want to talk to his brother. Had Sam been present, there would have been a fulminating silence in the room. Had Sam been present, Dean probably would not have been. He would likely have gone out, to drink and find more congenial company.

But there would have been security, even in his rage: the security of knowing that his infuriating little brother was safe. He'd grown accustomed to having him there, under his watchful eye. No matter what he was feeling, safeguarding Sam was as natural to him as breathing.

If he could have called Sam and ensured his wellbeing without having to exchange words, he would have picked up the phone long ago.

Now the weapons were cleaned and checked, and rested in the duffle in readiness for the next hunt.

The greasy paper bag was empty of the burger and fries it had held.

He'd even showered.

There were no more excuses to keep him from making that call.

He breathed heavily through his nose, ran one irritable hand down his face. Then he reached for the phone.

* * *

"_...you just blindly obey orders without thinking for yourself..."_

It floated in his shattered awareness. A familiar voice, but not speaking now; a memory, recent.

It disturbed him.

Something had happened, but as much as he groped for clarity, nothing came to him, no explanation.

Only the words, drifting, angry and accusing.

"_It's as if you don't even care..."_

And for a moment, an image of a face as familiar as his own. Furious. Threatening.

_Dean._

"_If you leave, Sam, don't expect me to come after you..."_

Whatever had happened, Dean wasn't there.

* * *

His head ached.

He pulled the pillow over his eyes, seeking the oblivion of sleep again, but the pain wouldn't release him, and the movement only reminded him of his ineffective attempts the previous night to forget. Nausea swirled.

He hadn't really wanted to go out. Alcohol dealt with most of the troubles he faced, even if only temporarily, but this was beyond the help of a six-pack or a bottle of Jack. Maybe that was why he'd had so much.

He'd been drunk three days ago, after the fight with Sam. He'd sat by the bar, ignored the flirtatious attempts of the waitress to get his attention, knocked back whiskey until the thunderous din of remembered words was muffled in his head.

That time he hadn't known what he'd see when he returned.

Cracked screen facing the carpet, his phone lay on the floor. He hadn't looked at it since last night, since he'd hurled it against the wall. Since Sam had ignored his calls.

Sam had been furious, too. Furious enough to leave, to listen to Dean's warning and go anyway. Furious enough, even by last night, to let his brother's calls go to voicemail and turn his back on Dean's attempts to patch things up.

Dean's own rage had flared up again then.

That last time, three days ago, drinking had worked. He'd almost managed to forget what Sam had said, what he himself had said. He'd almost been ready to move on. This time there'd been nowhere to move, nowhere to go but back to the motel room that he knew would be empty, to the phone which would remain stubbornly silent. And even alcohol couldn't wipe that out of his mind, no matter how much he drank.

That last time, when he'd slammed the door of that other motel room, he'd left his brother sitting on the bed.

He'd never expected Sam to be gone when he returned.

* * *

Dean was angry.

It swam out of nowhere, that realisation.

He still couldn't remember what had happened, why there was so much pain, but in the fog of unconsciousness in which he drifted he was aware of a memory, of mint-green eyes sparking with rage, of grooves furrowing between heavy glowering brows.

"_...you think you can just march in and tell him he's wrong..."_

Dad...

Something about... a hunt...

And Dean was angry.

"_If you leave, Sam, don't expect me to come after you..."_

He'd said something... done something... that made Dean mad.

Madder than he'd ever been.

Because whatever Sam didn't know, whatever he couldn't remember or understand, he knew that he was injured, and that Dean wasn't there.

He was hurt, and Dean was angry enough to leave him alone.

_Sorry, Dean..._

_Didn't mean it..._

He was so tired. Tired of the endless pain, of the unremitting effort to breathe. Tired of the confusion that was his mind.

He was tired of hoping that Dean would be there when he woke up, and of the pain of his absence every time, of calling for him and reaching for him and never finding him.

"De..."

_Don't leave me alone..._

_Please..._

_Need you..._

* * *

It was frustrating how much he'd come to depend on Sam.

He'd hunted alone before, of course, when Sam was at Stanford. It wasn't that he couldn't manage: he'd been trained by the best, and many less able men hunted on their own.

But he'd grown used to the partnership, to working with someone who knew him as well as he did himself. He'd known he could trust Sam to watch his back. He'd known he could rely completely on him.

That was before Sam had decided that he'd rather work alone. That he'd rather pursue his girlfriend's killer than listen to his father or his brother. That was before he'd quietly departed and left Dean to return to an empty motel room.

Dean had gone on the hunt. He'd left immediately after finding Sam gone, left as they'd been intending anyway, and had dispatched the witch that they'd planned to fight together. Then he'd moved on, found a simple haunting. It had all been unremarkable.

But it was still frustrating how much he had to keep reminding himself that his partner was not there. There was so much that Sam would automatically have done, so much that Dean kept expecting him to do; even a simple salt and burn wasn't so simple when there was no little brother standing guard with a rock salt-loaded shotgun.

He glanced at the blinking gas light. It was time to refuel. He'd driven for hours since Sam had left, music blasting and foot heavy on the accelerator.

Gravel crunched as he pulled off the road into the gas station.

He was exhausted. He'd been chain-drinking coffee and skimping on sleep, and he leant against the car as the tank slowly filled, his eyes squinting in the weak sun. Sam would have insisted that they stop at the next motel. That they find a decent diner and eat something that didn't taste like deep-fried cardboard.

For someone who neglected his own health, Sam kept an annoyingly close watch on Dean's.

_Had_ kept.

He pushed that thought away and blinked across the tiny station, but it was disappointingly devoid of any kind of store. He wasn't hungry, exactly, but food gave him something to do. It was a distraction between hunts.

He wondered what Sam was eating. If Sam was eating.

Being Sam, he probably hadn't had solid food since he'd left.

The tank was full. He fumbled some notes from his pocket, paid for the gas, made his way back to the Impala. There was a bag of m&m's somewhere in the back that would keep him going until the next burger made itself available. Sam had bought it last time they'd filled up.

Sam didn't even like m&m's.

Dean unlocked the back door with more force than usual.

The backseat was a mess. He pushed aside an empty soda can and an old pizza box to reveal a half-full carton of very limp fries.

"You need a beauty treatment, sweetheart." He spoke half-heartedly. Even chatting to his baby wasn't much fun when Sam wasn't there to roll his eyes.

Washed-out fabric slowed him briefly as he slid his hand under his seat. Sam's Disney blanket. It had been a gift from some woman, fifteen plus years ago; thanks for a job their father had done for her. Mickey Mouse had long since faded, the victim of innumerable laundries. Dean didn't know why Sam still had it.

The m&m's weren't hiding under the blanket.

Something else was, though.

Something that had Dean staring. Something that leached the colour from his face, something around which his fingers clenched convulsively as he tugged it free and set it with appalled fascination on the back seat.

Something that shattered his entire perception of the last five days.

It was Sam's duffle.

* * *

They talked to him.

He heard their voices, muffled and fragmented, like a badly-tuned radio. They spoke in between the footsteps and the hands that moved around him and manipulated him. Sometimes he thought he understood what they were saying.

"...hear me..."

"...hurt...?"

"...feeling today..."

Sometimes there would be a pause, as if they were expecting an answer. An answer from him.

But it was never the voice he wanted to hear, never the hand he needed to feel, and it was too difficult to try to respond.

Dean was gone.

Sometimes the pain would surge, engulfing and overwhelming, his leg, or more often his head, and in some bizarre way he would welcome it, because the physical pain was a distraction from the greater agony in his mind. Sometimes it was so bad that it carried him away into dark empty nothing, and for a while he wouldn't know.

But then he would surface, slowly, and the pain was upon him again, and no matter how much he yearned and reached and called Dean was never there.

He'd never known sickness without his brother, never been hurt without having Dean beside him. He'd never imagined anything could keep him away. His over-protective older brother.

But Dean had left him.

The one absolute certainty in his life was no longer a guarantee, and the knowledge was too terrifying to contemplate.

* * *

He found himself staring stupidly. Familiar camouflage canvas... black webbing straps. The broken zipper head and that odd little ink stain on the side pocket that bore a distinct resemblance to a wendigo.

Sam's duffle.

Sam's clothes, his books.

His _wallet_.

Dean could remember seeing it on the bed. He could remember how it had tipped over when Sam had sat down after their fight. Sam had been packing it when Dad had called, folding his shirts and his spare pair of jeans. They'd been about to leave the motel.

And then Dad had phoned, and his news about Mom's killer and Jess's killer and his flat refusal to allow them to follow it had ignited the smouldering embers of the old argument, had lit the fuse of the worst fight Dean could remember between them. Sam had sulked, and Dean had stormed out to find a bar.

And when he'd returned, Sam was gone. Gone to chase the demon, gone to do what he wanted in defiance of his family.

Dean had reconstructed the events in the motel room after his own departure. He'd pictured Sam sitting there, fuming. He'd pictured the stubborn determination on his face, the cramming of his remaining possessions into his bag. He'd imagined the tight-lipped resolve with which Sam had slipped away before Dean returned.

Because Sam had told him. Sam had said he would leave, said he couldn't put up with it any longer.

"_If you want to stay here just sitting around on your ass, feel free... I'm going to find this thing."_

There had been no other explanation when he'd returned and found the empty motel room. Sam was gone, as he'd threatened. His possessions were gone.

But this: this made nonsense of that.

This didn't fit with that neatly-constructed picture. There was no possible reason for Sam to leave his things: his clothes, everything he owned, his driver's licence and money. There was nothing that could have induced him to leave the only photograph he had of Jess.

Blistering rage faltered, faded. Slow, bitter fear took its place. There was only one reason for Sam to pack his things neatly and put them in the Impala before he left.

He had been planning to return.

But he hadn't.

* * *

They said he was unconscious. They said it was a coma or something, that they weren't sure how much he understood.

Katie Jessup didn't know about that. She just felt sorry for him.

She listened to what they said, the conversation at the nurses' station that she wasn't really meant to hear. She was only a cleaner, the lowliest of staff members, and she wasn't supposed to be interested in the patients.

But how could she help being interested in this one?

He didn't have a name. At least not one that anyone knew. He was unidentified, unclaimed by any loved ones; the hospital had him registered as "John Doe".

The doctor was not happy with his progress.

Katie wasn't supposed to know that either, really, but she'd perfected the art of merging into the background when important people said important things. She learned a lot that way. And she knew that Dr. Price was concerned that "John" was still unconscious. They were all waiting for him to wake up and tell them something; who he was, who they could call. Where he belonged.

It had been five days since he'd been brought in, but so far the only information they had was a name.

Katie wondered about this Dee. A girlfriend, maybe, or fiancée? "John" didn't really look old enough for a wife, and he wasn't wearing a wedding ring. Whoever she was, he was disturbed by her absence.

She ran a cloth over the already spotless bedside cabinet. Most patients had flowers there, cards, or chocolates or fruit. "John" had nothing.

She stood still for a moment and looked at him: bruises dark against unnatural pallor, tanned skin disappearing under white plaster. A physique produced by hard outdoor activity, weakened now by trauma. He'd almost died in the ER. She'd seen Dr. Price's face the last time he'd examined his patient: "John" could still die.

He stirred a little as she stood there, and his breathing quickened momentarily. Her own breath caught. He didn't open his eyes, but faint as drifting leaves came the now-familiar name.

"_De..._" The desolation in his tone made her eyes prickle. Dee... she wasn't there. She was never there, and he just kept calling.

Timidly she touched his hand.

"It's okay..."

His fingers moved, grasping, but not for her.

"It's okay," she said again. "She'll come... Dee won't leave you."

She tried to believe it.

* * *

The motel room was empty.

He'd floored the accelerator, broken every speed limit; he'd covered the distance between the gas station and Robertson in a time that would have surprised even him if he'd given it a thought.

He stood in the impersonal neatness of the unoccupied room and felt stupid for having hoped that he would find his brother that easily. He wasn't sure why he'd expected Sam to be there, five days on, five days after Dean had left.

The thought was tragically ironic. He'd been so angry that Sam had left, so furious when he'd discovered Sam was gone.

And all along it had been Dean who had left Sam.

For one horrible moment he just stood, thoughts darting wildly. Sam wasn't there. Sam had disappeared five days ago, somewhere in this little town. Five days he'd been missing, while Dean had raged and cursed and driven further and further away. And he wasn't answering his phone, which meant that he couldn't.

_I should have known something was wrong when he didn't pick up. I should have known Sam wouldn't just ignore me like that._

Nightmare images paraded. Sam lying broken in a deserted alley after a mugging gone wrong... Sam huddled limply in a cave, the victim of some unspeakable monster... Sam unconscious and freezing in a ditch... Sam sick... Sam injured... Sam dead.

When their loved ones disappeared, normal people went to the police.

Dean didn't like the police. The police didn't like Dean. Odd things happened around the Winchesters and officials were not usually receptive to the idea of supernatural perpetrators. And then there was the little matter of his apparent death after committing murder and assault.

No, he couldn't go to the police.

He'd just have to find Sam on his own.

* * *

Sandra Dillford enjoyed her job. It didn't pay very well. But everyone had to tighten their belts these days, and she was always the first to know when something dramatic happened. She could still remember that evening when young Jim Havelock had accidentally sliced his femoral artery with a scythe; he'd come staggering in, blood everywhere, gasping and clutching his leg... excitement was rare, but when it came it was worth it.

Her friends regarded her with more respect now that she was employed at the hospital. As receptionist, she was not just a mere secretary. She knew things. She could tell things, although she often didn't because that made her more interesting.

And her job gave her the opportunity to meet people, although she had to admit that they weren't often young, or attractive.

The man standing in front of her was both. Particularly the latter.

Sandra had bid a reluctant farewell to fifty several years previously, but her friends assured her she looked younger. Many men preferred more mature women, anyway. She tilted her head and smiled.

"Can I help you?"

"I'm looking for my brother." He didn't smile back.

She looked up at him through stubby eyelashes.

"What's your brother's name?"

"Sam. Sam Winchester."

She turned to her computer, ran through the patient list, but there was no record of a Sam Winchester. She gave him her special sympathetic smile.

"I'm sorry, sir, we don't have a Sam Winchester. But I suppose that's good news – better that he's not in the hospital!" she tittered. The sound faded uncertainly when he didn't respond in kind.

"Was he meant to be here?"

He ran his hand roughly through his hair.

"I... I don't... no. He wasn't _meant_ to be here. I was just hoping maybe..."

"You were hoping he was in hospital?" Her light laugh became a cough as he stared at her.

"No. I was hoping someone had seen him. I... I don't know where he is."

"You don't know where..." Her voice trailed off as for the first time a startling possibility occurred to her.

A worried young man...

A missing brother...

She blinked, her eyes widening, and cleared her throat.

"Are you Dee?"

* * *

Hit and run.

Not a monster, or a ghost. Not some angry vengeful spirit.

Just a criminally thoughtless human, driving carelessly, driving too fast. Skidding on a slippery road and too scared – or too drunk – to stop and think of the person he'd left lying on the ground behind him.

Dean didn't want to think about that, about Sam unconscious on that icy road, in pain, struggling to breathe. He recoiled at the thought of Sam surrounded by strangers, even if they had been kind. Sam, hurt and alone. Sammy. His little brother.

He'd just wanted to clear his head, to deal with the fight. He'd just wanted a walk.

Sam was strong, and capable; Sam was a fearsome demon hunter.

Sam looked so small.

It was illogical; it was all wrong. It was appalling that he could be so defenceless.

It was unthinkable that he'd been lying badly injured in hospital for five days and Dean had not been there. He'd almost died, from a collapsed lung, from blood loss. Sam could have died, and Dean wouldn't even have known.

He wanted to wrap his arms around Sam. He wanted to run away and pretend this wasn't happening. He wanted to yell, to hit someone, to blame someone for this whole hideous mess, for Sam's condition and Dean's oblivion.

But there was no-one to blame, unless it was himself, and only a fool or a coward would try to ignore it. And Sam was too fragile, too pale and limp and breakable – too _broken_ – to be held. He stood by the bed and looked down at his unconscious brother, and his face was stony with all the emotions he couldn't show.

* * *

"_...stubborn and selfish..."_

"_... _you_ might be wrong..."_

Angry.

"_... don't expect me to come after you..."_

Gone.

He didn't understand. But he knew. Dean was gone, and he wasn't coming back. Whatever had happened, whatever Sam had done, it was unforgiveable. He could apologize, and repent, feel sorrow and remorse for the hideous unknown sin that he'd committed, but Dean was still angry. Dean was still absent.

Sam was still alone.

The pain was bad, now. It ached, his leg, his arm; a dull relentless pulsation with his heartbeat. He wanted help, wanted something to take the pain away, but there was only one thing that would really work, and it was the one thing he couldn't have. Someone would come eventually, sooner if he cried out, but it wouldn't be the someone he wanted.

_Dean._

There was pain in his chest, and he didn't know if it was broken bones and torn flesh, or something more irreparable.

"Dean..." It was hopeless and pointless and he couldn't help it, the moan that escaped him or the futile grasping of empty fingers.

He'd been unanswered for so long. He'd reached so many times for a hand that wasn't there.

And then fingers met his, calloused and strong, and his hand was suddenly warm in a familiar hard grip. He heard it, the voice he'd called for. Not angry; not threatening; the voice of security and protection. Of love.

"Sammy..."

* * *

They were bloodshot and a little unfocused. They'd been so angry last time he'd seen them; furious and frustrated, with cleverly concealed hurt.

"_Dean_?" Stunned now; incredulous; Sam was too weak to hide anything.

"The one and only." The words were flippant. The tone was not.

"Dean..."

Chilled fingers moved, clutched his with a desperate grip. Amazement gave way to distress.

"I thought... I..." Sam's voice quivered. "_You were gone..._" Anguish and misery filled exhausted blue-green eyes, slid unchecked down and soaked into the pillow.

"Sammy..." Dean swallowed. "I thought... I thought _you_ were gone. When I came back and you weren't there... I thought you'd left."

Sam blinked. Tears clung to wet eyelashes.

"But..."

"I didn't know that you were hurt. I thought you were angry. I thought you'd left to... to... you know. If I'd known... if I knew..." His voice cracked. "I didn't know, Sammy."

"I... I thought you were just too angry to come." It was a tiny whisper.

Dean _had_ been angry. He'd been furious that Sam could leave like that. He'd been too angry to think clearly, to think that Sam wouldn't just ignore him.

"I didn't know." His own eyes were wet now. "I'm sorry, bro. I'm so sorry. I swear, if I'd known you were hurt, I would have been here. I would never... I would never..."

His free hand reached out, gripped his brother's shoulder. Sam's eyes slid shut, heavy with exhaustion and the lingering threads of an unconsciousness from which he'd so recently emerged.

"D...Dean..."

"Yeah."

"Don't... don't..."

"I'm not gonna leave you, Sammy." His hand slid across and rested lightly on the side of Sam's neck. Comforting. Reassuring.

Sam sighed, turned his head to lean against Dean's hand.

"Promise..." It was the softest murmur.

"I'm not leaving you. I promise."

* * *

"_...don't expect me to come after you..."_

An angry voice sparked brief remembered fear. Memories of that fight, insubstantial, incoherent; distressing. Dean had... Dean was...

Dean was _there_.

"_I'm not leaving you..."_

He still didn't really understand. But now it didn't matter.

He wasn't alone.

"_I promise."_

His hand quivered, fingers reaching. But this time an answering hand tightened around his. This time the responding voice was the one he needed, deep and steady, and soft with rarely-shown tenderness.

"Sammy..." _It's okay... I'm here... I'm not gonna leave you._

He didn't answer.

He didn't need to.

Dean was with him. Dean would stay while he slept, and be there when he woke. Whatever had happened, whatever he didn't understand or remember, he didn't have to contend with it alone.

He drifted away again, and this time there were no angry voices to trouble his sleep.

* * *

His arm ached. He'd been sitting in the same position for longer than was really comfortable, after driving more miles than he liked to remember. But he didn't think of moving.

Sam was asleep. Sam's hand was relaxed in his, a little warmer than it had been. On the pillow a dark dishevelled head was turned slightly to face him, as if even in sleep Sam needed to keep him in view. As if Dean had to be the first thing Sam saw when he woke.

There was so much that still needed to be faced. Sam would be laid up for weeks, even after he left the hospital. And there were issues that they would have to discuss, the issues which had precipitated all of this in the first place. There would have to be long conversations, difficult and probably emotional, if Sam remembered... when Sam remembered.

But that was all in the future.

For now it was enough that he was here. He was with Sam, where he should be, watching over him, which was his job.

Whatever had to be faced, it would always be easier when they were together.

He leant back in the chair and let his own eyes drift shut.

* * *

The hospital hummed. Rhythmic bleeps of heart monitors and the soft regular hiss of oxygen... the purr of wheels underlying the dull clank of the elevator... fingers on computer keyboards, good old-fashioned pens scratching out recordings on patient charts, light footsteps and quiet night-time voices.

A middle-aged doctor smiled at a younger red-headed nurse in the shared relief of a patient's unexpected recovery. A pulse that had been a little uneven, a little too fast and too weak, was steadier now. Incoherent confusion had settled into drowsy lucidity.

The doctor mused with satisfaction on the efficacy of modern medical science, and departed, secretly content at the thought of a peaceful evening. The nurse had her own theories, but she didn't voice them. She'd hoped for a mother, but it seemed that a brother was what had been needed all along.

A small silent figure paused with a vase of flowers in one hand and a cloth in the other, unnoticed by the two in the room. She'd imagined the girlfriend, the romantic reunion of the lovers when at last Dee arrived. And then in the end, Dee was Dean, and the envisaged beautiful girl was in fact an older brother.

It might have been disappointing. But how could she feel anything but relief that "John" was no longer alone, that that sad reaching hand was no longer grasping for another that didn't come? It might not have been the romance she'd pictured, but perhaps this was a happier ending after all.

And at the front desk, Sandra Dillford reflected complacently on the excitement and drama of her job, and a coy smile curled her mouth as she pictured the handsome Dean Winchester. Her friends were going to be so envious...

**_Fin_**

_**So... let me know what you think...**_


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